Courtney White
With fanfare in mid-April, President Obama launched the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative in an attempt to reinvigorate conservation policy at a time when the nation is facing the twin concerns of rising environmental challenges and declining interest in nature.
On this latter point, new studies show an alarming downward trend in a variety of outdoor activities, so the initiative’s timing is great. But to the first point, without effective public-private partnerships, these challenges can’t be overcome.
One of the initiative’s goals is to build effective coalitions with state agencies and the private sector, and the president directed Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to lead the charge.
As someone who has been personally involved in coalition work for many years, often working with ranchers, sportsmen, agencies and others, I applaud this goal and add two observations from my direct experience: Partnerships are essential to effective and substantive progress in conservation today, especially on public lands; and federal agencies could make the collaborative process easier for all involved.
One successful public-private partnership program is the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which has funded national and local parks as well as conservation easements – protecting wildlife habitat while sustaining farms and ranches.
The Quivira Coalition’s experience includes a fruitful partnership between the Bureau of Land Management, local chapters of Navajo Nation, state agencies and others on a range restoration project near Cuba, New Mexico. We have also directed a long-running habitat restoration project on behalf of the Rio Grande Cutthroat trout in the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico, and managed a “grassbank” on a national forest grazing allotment in support of an array of land health improvement work in the region.
In each case, we found the employees of the participating federal agencies to be hardworking, dedicated and skilled. But we also found the system encumbered by bureaucracy, policies, regulations, budget cuts, staff shortages, conflicting priorities, personnel turnover and institutional inertia, which frequently combine to gridlock public land agencies to the point of frustration for partners.
Momentous challenges
Recently, for example, The Quivira Coalition was told by the U.S. Forest Service that any NEPA cost (an environmental analysis required by law) associated with a proposed restoration project will now be carried by the partner instead of the federal agency. NEPA is not cheap and it is hard to find this money. If the Forest Service goes through with this plan and passes these costs on to nonprofits, wildlife groups, state agencies or other partners, I predict future such partnerships will become increasingly scarce.
This is important because, as Secretaries Salazar and Vilsack have both pointed out, we face momentous challenges in the 21st century. Take climate change. Speaking at the U.N. Summit in Copenhagen last December, Secretary Salazar said Interior’s 70,000 employees will begin to focus their work on tackling the effects of global warming.
“We must manage our lands and oceans for three new functions,” he announced, “renewable energy production, carbon capture and storage, and climate adaptation.”
He went on to say that by restoring ecosystems, using best management practices, and protecting key areas from development, “U.S. lands can store more carbon in ways that enhance our stewardship of land and natural resources while reducing our contribution to global warming.”
I couldn’t agree more. And there’s plenty of good news. I know first-hand that the toolbox for restoration is well developed, including methods that increase the capacity for soils to absorb atmospheric CO2. The array of best-management practices is wide and diverse. And the key to their implementation is partnerships. In a coalition, everyone brings a different idea or tool to the table, and by working together we can implement effective change. I know because I’ve seen it work.
Suggestions for improvement
Here are some suggestions to improve partnerships on public lands:
• Create a pool of funding for planning and regulatory compliance to which nonprofits and other partners could apply.
• Create a memorandum-of-understanding-type process that will withstand repeated turnover in federal personnel.
• Create more incentives for enterprising organizations that want to improve land health and ecological resilience.
I applaud the president’s initiative, as well as the leadership of Secretaries Salazar and Vilsack in this very important enterprise. I encourage the secretaries to examine the various obstacles that are impeding effective partnerships, especially with the private sector, and help remove them so that we can all work together to address the critical challenges confronting our public lands.
White is executive director and co-founder of the Quivira Coalition and author of Revolution on the Range: the Rise of a New Ranch in the American West, as well as many articles and essays on the region. He writes at awestthatworks.com.